Podcast transcript – Series Trailer

Simon Taylor: So I’m driving back from Mildura to Melbourne. But that’s OK, I’m a modern man. I know what to do. I pull over, I get out of the car, I get my phone out and I google, how do you change a flat tyre? [laughter] But there was no reception, so what I did then was I sat down to die.

Val McFarlane: It’s hard to make a living from comedy. There are plenty of funny people who spend their nights making people laugh, but very few are able to give up their day job. Simon Taylor is one of the select few.

[Dr Fiona Price reading out list of multicultural names]

Verica Jokic: At every graduation ceremony at the University of Melbourne, Fiona Price reads out the names of new graduates.

[Dr Fiona Price reads more names]

Dr Fiona Price: I read them out enthusiastically and clearly and I’m confident and that comes across.

Verica Jokic: The calls kept coming from faculty Deans and their PAs. The Deans were very nervous and intimidated by the great numbers of multicultural names they were going to have to read at graduation ceremonies. Could Fiona help with name pronunciations at graduations? And, could she provide phonetic spellings for the names too? And then inevitably, could Fiona actually read the names out herself at the University of Melbourne graduations?

Val McFarlane: Kath moved from South Australia to study the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at Melbourne. She’s veterinary resident at the zoo. On an average day she could be caring for any one of the three thousand, three hundred animals there, from the tiniest fish right up to an elephant.

Dr Kath Adriaanse: So this is our surgery. This is the main surgery that we use for any procedure that we do at the zoo unless it’s a really big animal that we might down in an enclosure. Everything from the tiniest little bird or even fish. So, we’ve certainly done fish anaesthetics here.

Val McFarlane: So just how do you anaesthetise a fish?

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